Savandurga Hill
Last Sunday we finally managed to get way beyond the boundaries of Bangalore. Our destination was Savandurga Hill, one of the largest monoliths of India, about 35 km from Bangalore, rising to 1226m. We had admired the landscape on TV watching Passage to India back in Australia. Little did we know then that we would be living pretty close to the location where all the hill scenes were filmed.
Ian is very busy with work at the moment as the Thoughtworks University semester is well on the way, so the organisation of this little trip was my affair. Various tour operators offer adventure packages in the area but as I also read that there is a signposted way going up this hill I decided we would have enough adventure walking by ourselves. I managed to order a cab with driver for Sunday morning 8 o’clock and buy plenty of food for a picnic.
Sunday morning started with bag packing, breakfast, filling plenty of water bottles and the usual trouble to explain to a driver with little English on the phone where we live. Eventually he found our closest landmark, the Toshiba building. Everybody was in high spirits as I had allowed us the luxury of a 7 seater car with aircon. So we closed the windows and submitted ourselves to the wisdom of the driver to get us out of the city. He didn’t really choose the direction I would have expected but he would know, would he not…? I have been feeling like an alien in this city since we arrived, this time this feeling was even stronger… driving along through the hustle and bustle of Bangalore like in a silver spaceship, smells shut out, noises muffled, just the shapes and colours reach my eyes.
It took about an hour to get to the western outskirts of town. Finally the houses thinned out making room for some dry barren land and a bit of greenery. The ever present cows eating some bushes rather than rubbish like in the city. Further out we spotted mango and banana plantations. We drove through a few villages, poverty staring at our space ship from every door step. Barefoot children, women washing clothes in front of houses on the floor, shrines with fresh offerings… less rubbish though. And no more posh buildings with guards hanging around outside. A procession making its way to the village temple carrying something colourful on a litter, some people in the front dressed up… our spaceship didn’t stop. Another time a herd of sheep blocks the road. I have to say, I preferred to slow down for some sheep to being stuck in Bangalore traffic between motorbikes, rickshaws, buses and cars, listening to the cacophony of horns.
The Big Banyan Tree
Our first stop was the Big Banyan Tree. It is supposed to be one of the biggest of its kind in India, covering 12,000 sqm. Apparently such a tree starts of as a harmless epiphyte spreading roots into every direction. Once these roots reach the earth, the tree gets so many nutrients that it goes into a massive growth spurt usually crushing its host in the process. Well, this tree’s host died nearly half a century ago which means nothing left nor could we recognise where the actual centre of the tree was. The whole area of the tree is a blissfully shady park with little walkways, benches and a little temple (of course banyan trees are sacred). We could hardly believe that this whole jungle was really o n e tree. We watched some sacred monkeys playing about and obviously the tree was also home to myriads of the sacred squirrels.
Moving on we very soon spotted our destination, a monolith that size is not good at hiding. It took another half hour or so get to the foot of the mountain at the right spot but I didn’t mind. Driving through the countryside was such a pleasure… bush land, a lake, rocky hills instead of noisy, dirty city chaos. We arrived just before 11. There is a village and some temples but we were keen to get going with our walk as it was getting quite hot. We planned to look at the temples later. But where to get up the hill? I had read that there was an easy and a hard way up and nothing about a start point of either of those routes. I tried my luck with an old man walking by and he spoke English indeed! He pointed us into the right direction but warned us about the heat and that it was too late in the day to attempt the climb. Hm. So we walked through the tiny village past a tiny market and some stalls selling snacks and drinks. As we started going towards a grand looking gate the locals called to us and pointed us into another direction.
Going up Savandurga Hill
Yes of course, a family of white people with back packs… it wasn’t hard to guess where we wanted to go. So we followed a narrow path through the bushes before the view opened to our way up, up and a bit more up the rock. We took a little break here and got the sun cream out. Despite the closeness to the equator we had hardly needed sun protection in Bangalore so far. The dust and dirt are thick enough in the city to filter out any harmful and unharmful radiation. Not out here, the air was so much cleaner! Anyway, standing around and waiting for everybody to be ready we noticed a boy about Grainne’s age who seemed to have joined us. He hardly spoke any English but made it quite clear that he wanted to be our guide. Hm… I didn’t think we really needed a guide. Ian tried to convey this and gave him a little money hoping that this would satisfy him and he would leave us alone. But that was a mistake… it might not be a very nice comparison but I caught myself being reminded of a hungry dog – once you start feeding it you will not be able to get rid of it. And so our guide accompanied us all the way up and most of the way back. He kept pointing us into the right direction even though the way was really well signposted, he offered a helping
Further up, Frangipanis in the background
hand at difficult stretches which nobody accepted, he refused to take any food from us. Just once, nearly at the top he took some water Ian had offered him. We kept wondering how he could manage… barefooted, without any drink or food.
But back to our climb. The way went steeply up the rock face. It was getting hot and so our progress was not exactly rocket fast. But it didn’t matter, we had all the time we wanted. Whenever we found a speck of shade beside a boulder or under some scarce trees we took advantage of it. But there wasn’t much as the sun took its position nearly vertically above us (just look at the tiny shadows in the picture). The legs got tired soon and shaky. Some stretches were so steep we had to climb on all fours (and wondered how on earth we were gonna make it back down). To regenerate a bit we decided to have our picnic before we got to the top, partly because we found a particularly big piece of shade under some old castle ruins.
On top of Savandurga Hill
From there it was just another 20 minutes or so to the top. The view was spectacular. Rocky, dry wilderness as far as the eye could see in the slightly hazy air. Some villages and buildings sprinkled in. It could have been somewhere in Western Australia or in Zimbabwe. Lovely… the air was clear, one could take deep breaths of it without worrying about dust or smell. No rubbish, no noise, no crowds… I wished this place wasn’t so far away from the city and I could come here more often.
And down we went again. Not completely careless… legs felt shaky, sun burning down. It was about 1 o’clock. It would take us 1 and a half hours to make our way back to the valley. I was very pleased we had carried all that water, we drunk it all up by the end. And I was pleased everybody was so careful and nobody got hurt. More than once we all went on our bottoms to make it down the steep stretches. For the last half hour I guess at least everybody’s feet ached and all we could think of were cool drinks or ice cream and one family member in particular kept longing for that air-conditioned car to relax in 😉 Well, it was hardly surprising. I reckon we had climbed about 300 – 400 meters of altitude, not exactly easy without practice. We watched a few groups of Indian men climbing up / down… barefoot or in thongs, hardly anybody carrying water… I don’t know, did they have lots of practice or just didn’t have the option of trainers and back packs full of food…
The elephant rock
Finally down. The village is bustling with life. We managed to get some lukewarm Fantas and stood in the shade of one of the temples gulping them down. The place seemed very communal. Some celebration going on in the house across the street. A bright yellow house under a bright red blossoming flame tree, women in saris of all colours walking by… colourful India!
Nobody felt in the mood to visit the temples, so we walked straight back to the cab, woke up our driver and started back home. I felt a little reluctant to drive back into the loud chaos of the city… but what could we do.
All in all a lovely little adventure. Savandurga gave us a little glimps of rural India, the challenge of a rewarding climb and gorgeous views into the country. And of course precious time spent together as a family 🙂
The Suttonses in Bangalore 